Alpine

Hello friends! Writing on a Sunday evening, as is typical of late I suppose. A few words now, most likely nothing creative tonight as I’d love some nice time to read and reflect and muse and ponder on oh so many things. It’s been a lovely Sunday here. Woke up to the temperature hovering about the 40 degree mark, which made my early Sunday morning walk even more perfect. Turtleneck on, jacket zipped – let’s go! The fresh sunlight warmed my face and the hot coffee that I carried with me warmed the rest of my parts and I breathed deep the winter air as I thought on how good my God is to me his child. I did come back home eventually and of course had to turn on the TV to watch the hockey gold medal match. Although they looked oft overmatched at times, the USA somehow pulled out the victory in OT to grab the gold. Go USA!!! That goalie was a beast, stopping oh so many shots that looked like sure goals in any other game. I have to say, speaking of Olympics, how much Dani and I have enjoyed these winter games in Milan. I do usually enjoy watching all the crazy winter sports of test and skill that are on offer, but feel it’s been extra fun this year! Dani and I enjoyed every night turning on the TV and marveling at the feats on display. Especially enjoyed the ladies’ figure skating – what dazzling skill and beauty intermingled! Big congrats to Ms. Alysa Liu at grabbing the gold – first US ladies figure skating gold since 2002! Also loved seeing Amber Glenn’s comeback skate as well as the marvelous skates of the Japanese ladies. Of course there was more than figure skating – loved seeing the downhill and halfpipe events and even showing Dani the craziness of the biathlon. What better combo than skiing and shooting?? Ah now I’ve gone and spent far too many words on the Olympics. But again…it only comes once every four years!

Back to the Sunday recap. Church was encouraging and beautiful and it was oh so good to worship God in the presence of my brothers and sisters and meditate on the wondrous love of my God who suffered and died that I might live eternally! Following church? Alas a quick work meeting was on the calendar, but after that Dani and I had lunch down the street at Local Foods and enjoyed some yummy sandwiches and even better time talking and being silly and just being together. Then…a walk down to the bridge and back, with the special treat of an ice cream stop at MKT. That may have been the favourite part of my day, sitting at MKT in the brilliant mid-afternoon sunshine as Dani enjoyed her ice cream.

Now, off to decide either to write a few words on something else or grab my book and read a few pages while I enjoy this Sunday night. Peace, my friends. Peace and love.

Hope deferred

I turned on my computer preparing to write an Olympics re-cap entry(and by that, I mean – describe the past few days in which I was in London with Joel. Y’know, at the Olympics. Watching some epic marathon swimming and volleyball(women’s gold medal match, USA v. Brasil…in which USA lost. Tragic. Our ladies were good, just not good enough.) Epic weekend, none the less for sharing it with the aforementioned and ever awesome Joel), but for some reason I don’t really feel in a writing mood(despite the odd parenthetical thought above) – I feel in more of a contemplative state right now. So instead of trying to chronicle our Olympics adventures, I think I will just make my chicken and veg stir fry dinner and sit and read and pray…

A luxury of silence and
A plethora of tears,
A cacophony of raindrops
And litany of fears.

Age-cracked leather beckons to me,
Ancient words and a promise of
tea and
apples and
honeyed light
to bring me warmth
this hallowed night.

Friday Vault

So I realize I haven’t posted a Friday morning entry in quite some time! I suppose work just may have something to do with that. Nevertheless, before I start work on this lovely Friday morning, thought I’d write a few words…

As I drove in this morning, the sunlight blazed victoriously until the road started descending towards the River Dee. As I crossed the bridge, fog rolling across the waters, I was sad for a moment to see the sunlight vanish from the skies. But I had already seen the sun burning merrily in the sky and I thought to myself that surely it would burn through the fog soon enough. And as I continued driving along the coast, my car escaped the tendrils of fog and broke into the sunlit summer morning once again. I smiled.

And now I must start work momentarily, but briefly – the Olympics are oh so awesome this year…I’m much enjoying the cornucopia of sports events every night this past week! Got to watch some great swimming last night(complete with Phelps domination of the 200 IM – 20th Olympic medal, what!) and as I was about to turn off the TV and go to bed, they mentioned they were going to show gymnastics highlights at 10. I had no idea who’d won the women’s all-around, so I groaned to myself and just decided to read a book and stay up to watch the gymnastics too! Enjoyed watching Gabby Douglas take the gold there! And so a delightful Olympics evening was had…only thing that could make it better was if I was watching it with my family.

And this was far longer than I was expecting to write. Still, only one other person in the office, but think it’s time I went to work.

Farewell all, enjoy a marvelous Friday!!!

Wreaths imperishable

I forgot how much I like watching the Olympics! Was watching Team USA lady gymnasts dominate it up earlier today in qualifiers(gosh, our girls are good!) and now came back from church to find some good swimming races on! Sadly Team USA couldn’t hold off the valiant French, losing the 4x100m freestyle relay. Alas. Now seeing the medal ceremony for the women’s 400m freestyle…French girl won, USA second. Again. Oh well, at least I love the French national anthem!

Seeing as my two favorite events to watch are gymnastics and swimming, it’s been a pretty good Olympics watching day. And so now I sip my tea as I relax this evening and enjoy the end of a beautiful weekend! Last night Chris and Jo came over for dinner and we all three enjoyed a good roast beef dinner and talked for hours and had an exceedingly delightful evening(complete with some very nice(oh so sweet!) Hungarian wine courtesy of their recent Hungary trip).

And now I will continue to enjoy my tea and maybe write a few more words. And I will relish the goodness and blessings the most glorious Lord has bestowed upon me. Ah how silly am I for seeking fulfillment in anything other than knowing the beauty of our God!

And now boxing is on, Team GB vs. Brazil. The GB guy is a Scot! I’m not a big boxing fan, but I’ll leave it on for now. These few weeks of Olympics is definitely going to be the biggest workout my TV’s had in a while.

Have a lovely afternoon/evening(depending on your time zone – I don’t *think* I have any readers in the Far East!). Peace out.